Abstract
The professional development needs of teachers have changed dramatically over the last 25 years. When constructed to reflect best practices evidenced in the research literature, micro-credentials and other 21st century innovations provide accessible, meaningful, professional learning experiences for educators. This chapter discusses two cases that affected personal transformation and pedagogical change for in-service teachers by an institution of higher education (IHE). A preliminary analysis of these alternative experiences established that when teacher professional development is founded on the context-sensitive integration of social and cultural competencies, meaningful, empowering, and enduring learning can take place.
TopThe Professional Development Of Teachers
Teacher professional development (TPD) has long been scrutinized for its salience and effectiveness. As a multi-billion dollar enterprise, the average American teacher engages in approximately 70 hours of professional development each year required by local district and state educational authorities (Berry et al., 2016). While professional development experiences are necessary to cultivate educators’ pedagogical knowledge, skills, strategies, and dispositions, the traditional, day-long venue of direct instruction delivered en masse by an outside expert has been characterized as a form of “death by PowerPoint” by teachers and researchers alike (Bartz & Kritonis, 2019, p. 57).
Berry, Airhart, and Byrd (2016) emphasize the need for an ongoing, developmental approach to professional development in which “teachers must continuously increase the knowledge and skills they have to teach more rigorous content and engage students in learning” (p. 34). This assertion holds especially true for 21st century “sophisticated forms of teaching…needed to develop student competencies such as deep mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, effective communication and collaboration, and self-direction” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017, p. v). Subsequently, the research literature evidences a paradigmatic shift away from top-down, deficit-based, and banking notions of “teacher training” to the re-definition of teacher development as “professional learning” using active, agentive, and transformative terms (Stewart, 2014).
Darling-Hammond (2017) and her colleagues at the Learning Policy Institute further expand this definition of TPD as an “essential component of a comprehensive system of teaching and learning that supports students to develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to thrive in the 21st century” (p. vii). By linking individual or micro-level experiences in isolated teacher education programs and/or school systems to a collective or macro-level network, professional learning experiences locate the discipline of education within a multidimensional, career-long structure. This framework is sustained by ongoing ethical, legal, and scientific activity “to ensure a comprehensive system focused on the growth and development of teachers” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017, p. vii).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social-Emotional Learning: A body of interdependent knowledge, skills, strategies, and dispositions that collectively establish and sustain mental, physical, and relational health.
Context-Sensitive Location: Acknowledgment of macro-level, historical-political, sociocultural dynamisms that have impacted and continue to be enacted at an individual’s or micro-level environment.
Culturally Responsive Practices: A compendium of knowledge, skills, strategies, and disposition, derived from interdisciplinary research, which, when appropriately and respectfully applied, co-construct interactions, behaviors, and policies specific to one or multiple communities.
Alternative Credentialing: Non-traditional means in which learners are recognized for specific knowledge or competencies specific to an occupation, discipline, or field.
Professional Development of Teachers: A plethora of teaching-learning experiences designed to enhance the knowledge and competencies of teachers to improve the academic performance of students.
Micro-Credentials: A series of short-term, teaching-learning experiences leading to the development of expertise.
Deficit-Based Stance: An ideological position in which subjects or individuals are considered “less than” promoting systemic discrimination.